A Vital Acquaintanceship
by FluffyMidKnight
Summary: Ryo has been living in Japan on his own for about a year now and speaking a second language all the time has made him homesick. Perhaps Seto can help. Very cute platonic Euroshipping.


A/n So I am well aware that I literally JUST wrote a story about Seto having no control of his life and needing comfort and now I put him in the other role but I think it's cute and sorta works. Also this is how I'm doing the Japanese dialogue "Japanese words/ English words." because I am fairly proficient in Japanese and I bet my friend I could write a fanfic with Japanese dialogue.

This takes place before Duelist Kingdom but after Seto takes over Kaiba corp. Seto is about 16 so is Ryo. Platonic Euroshipping

This is for you Matty (the friend I bet, who was actually the inspiration for this story. Thank you for being my Seto)

A Vital Acquaintanceship.

Ryo and Seto were not friends. In fact as far as Seto was concerned they were each others competition. The two of them were always in the top two spots in their class, inexcusable. Seto refused to come second to Ryo in any subject. This posed a problem as they both took English, Ryo's first language. Ryo was also better at Chemistry. Seto was always top in Accounting and Economics. Caluclus and History were always a toss up. They were in all the same classes together with the exception of AP Japanese Lit, Seto took that and he wasn't sure what Lit class Ryo was in.

They were also nothing alike, a fact the rest of the school apparently disputed, seeing as they wound up pared together for everything. Sure, Seto didn't socialize with other students and neither did Ryo. But Ryo didn't socialize with anyone. Because of how little he talked Ryo was a mystery to most of the student body and much like all high school mystery's, he was ignored and forgotten after 5 minutes. Seto had noticed he was an exchange student from somewhere in Britain and that he was the only other student who got given a sickeningly sad look from a teacher whenever parent teacher night was mentioned. Seto was much harder to forget than Ryo as he was known for correcting teachers when they were wrong and vehemently arguing until the teacher admitted he was right or kicked him out of class.

One of the places they were unfortunately pared up was a homework group held at the public library near the school. Seto glanced across the table to see Ryo had already finished his AP Chem homework. The homework group was good for Seto because it kept him away from the constantly ringing work phone in his office, a phone he would promptly glue himself to once he got home. It also let him see how fast Ryo worked, so he could be faster.

The two honer students worked in silence until just before the library closed when Seto looked up from his last Calculus problem to see Ryo leaning is forehead on his desk, most likely asleep. Seto scoffed expecting more from what he saw as the only real academic competition at their school. Falling asleep at inappropriate times was something Jononuchi was known for. Seto smirked thinking back to the time Jononuchi had fallen asleep at lunch and landed head first into his soup.

Seto packed up his books quietly and went to tap Ryo on the shoulder "Me o samasu Bakura-san/Wake up Bakura." Seto said, annoyed.

Ryo looked up at Seto with big brown eyes drooping, he rubbed his eyes and then moved his hands to his temples, massaging a migraine. "Sore ga soru tokidesu Kaiba-san?/ Is it time to leave Kaiba?" Ryo asked quietly.

Seto watched as Ryo painstaking piled books into his bag and while he watched he noticed something he had never seen in innocent, sheltered Ryo. A look of pure exhaustion and frustration mixed with urgency. The very look he was sure he wore throughout the whole of his childhood.

"Hai, Anata wa nani o torikunde iru?/ Yes, what are you working on?" Seto asked more out of curiosity than anything else.

"Nippon bunguku, watashi-tachi wa sanbun o yonde iru/ Japanese Lit, we're reading a prose." Ryo sighed.

Seto noticed Ryo's copy of the prose was the same prose he had studied last year and Ryo had scribbled loose translations all over it. "Sore wa, hado mite imasen./ That doesn't look hard."

"Iie, chodo boku go eigo de tekisetsuna kaiwa o shimashitanode, boku wa sore ga sa rite iru jikan oboeta./ No, it just made me remember how long it's been since I had a proper conversation in English." Ryo said, smiling sadly as he walked to the library's exit.

Seto could see that Ryo was struggling and he remembered how he felt when he lived with Gosaburo. That feeling of trying constantly, wearing yourself out mentally for nothing. Seto clutched his locket remembering how Mokuba gave him something to look forward to, perhaps he could do the same for Ryo. Seto decided he could use a little good karma.

"I can speak English fairly well." Seto said casually as he started walking though the library with Ryo.

"I know you get good grades in English." Ryo said, feeling like a massive inconvenience.

"Kaiba corp has big connections with America and Germany and after a few translation disasters I gave up and learned German and English. I'm fluent in both." Seto admitted. Thinking back to an incident that started with a pissed off purple haired German and ended with a purple private jet crashing into his blue eyes white dragon jet.

"Wow that's really impressive." Ryo was far more amazed by the fact that Seto was bothering to tell him this.

"I was going to get some dinner before work, you could join me if you'd like" Seto offered

"Ok, thank you." Ryo put his hands in his pockets, Seto had a way of making people feel insignificant of maybe that was from the huge limo waiting outside. Either way Ryo felt awkward.

The night went well. Ryo and Seto both being quiet people by nature didn't talk much. They spent a bit of time in the limo comparing their favorite cards and at dinner Ryo got to hear the hilarious story of how a German translator miss translating the phrase 'black tie event' resulted in about 6.5 million dollars in private jet damage. For Ryo the conversation topics didn't matter, they could have talked about the weather for all he cared. It was just nice to have a conversation in English for the first time in about a year. Even if Seto did make fun of his accent.

Things didn't really change between the two boys. The next day at school Seto ignored Ryo and Ryo just doodled in his notebook. But every few weeks after the Homework group in the library they would go out to dinner and just chat about nothing. A skill neither of them really possessed but the awkward English smalltalk was nice. It made the two feel less alone.


End file.
